>From a botanical perspective, the authors of the following article propose
that, contrary to widespread opinion, there is little evidence that plant
species in Mediterranean-type climates (e.g. south-western and south-eastern
Australia) do not have traits that are adapted to fire.
Bradshaw, S.D., Dixon, K.W., Hopper, S.D., Lambers, H & Turner, S.R. (2011).
Little evidence of fire-adapted plant traits in Mediterranean climate
regions. Trends in Plant Science: 16(2): 69-76.
A pdf copy of this paper can be downloaded from the following link provided
by one of the authors:
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/parker/bio821/papers/BradshawEtAlNoFireAdapt.pdf
It is important to note that this paper does not discuss adaptive traits of
plants in northern and central Australia, so their conclusions should not
necessarily be applied to plant species in those parts of the continent.
Kind regards,
Stephen
Stephen Ambrose
Ryde NSW
-----Original Message-----
From: Birding-Aus On Behalf Of
John Weigel
Sent: Wednesday, 13 August 2014 8:58 AM
To:
Subject: A study of the conservation benefits of indigenous
Australian land manag
G'day Laurie,
With the utmost respect, on this issue, I've got to take the other side of
this important conservation crisis, and suggest that if you haven't visited
Kakadu in the past five or six years, you might be in for a shock when you
next search for ground-dwelling fauna of any sort - particularly reptiles
and small mammals. It would be hard to find a burn scar less than 10-fold
the figure you have quoted. In fact, it can be a challenge to find an area
that size that HASN'T been burned in past few years. Instead of a 'mosaic'
approach based on allowing proper maturing of the rapidly receding spinifex
habitats to reach maturity, the current management process in Kakadu is to
apply 'mosaic' burns to any areas that have been spared far less time than
required to see return of complex ecologies including long-lived reptiles
(and presumably grass wrens). In short, the traditional burning by nomadic
tribes was not assisted by Cessna 'blanket' fire-drops, Toyotas and
automatic lighters.
Content preview: G?day Martin Are you suggesting that Aborigines haven?t
been
lighting fires at Kakadu for thousands of years or that traditional
fires
are hot burns? You might like to read the article. The point of the
article
is that "Martu-set fires average about 10 acres -- a small fraction of
the
size of fires ignited by lightning ... that patchy vegetation created by
intentional fires reduce the likelihood of devastating, large blazes.?
[...]
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Subject: A study of the conservation benefits of
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John Weigel AM
Australian Reptile Park
PO 737 Gosford NSW 2250
(02) 4340 1022
www.reptilepark.com.au
www.devilark.com.au
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